TEHRAN (FNA)- Former Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi blasted Saudi Arabia for acting against Muslims' interests by supporting the terrorist groups in the region against the Islamic Awakening.

"One of the issues which should be noted within the framework of Islamic Awakening is the negative role of certain countries like Saudi Arabia and we can possibly say that the Saudi regime has played one of the most negative roles in this regard," said Vahidi, who is currently the Head of the Strategic Center of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, on Monday.

"What we are witnessing today, including the Saudi crimes in Yemen, its support for the terrorists against the Syrian government, crimes against the Iraqi Shiites in the past and actions against Iraq's stability at present, massacre of innocent Saudi Shiites, supporting the formation of the Taliban, attempts to suppress the Nigerian Shiites, … is a long list of actions being carried out by the al-Saud regime against the Islamic Awakening objectives," he added.

Vahidi said that the Wahhabi, ISIL and other extremist streams (which are all supported by the Saudi regime) have all been promoted to confront the Islamic Awakening.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both part of an effort to create an alleged “Islam Army,” ostensibly aimed at combating terrorism in the region and consisting of 34 Sunni Islam nations.

Almost the entire range of extremist and terrorist groups are supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, with their key commanders and leaders being Saudi nationals. ISIL, Al-Nusra and other extremist groups pursue the same line of ideology exercised and promoted by Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism. Hundreds of Saudi clerics are among the ranks of ISIL and Al-Nusra to mentor the militants.

Wahhabism is now the only source of the textbooks taught at schools in the self-declared capital of the ISIL terrorist group, Raqqa, in Northeastern Syria resembling the texts and lessons taught to schoolgoers in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi ideology, an extremist version of Sunni Islam that is promoted almost only in Saudi Arabia, sees all other faiths - from other interpretations of Sunni Islam to Shiism, Christianity and Judaism - as blasphemy, meaning that their followers should be decapitated as nonbelievers.

By Fars News Agency